Luke's Birthday Dinner
As you may be aware, Luke's first birthday was Saturday the 23rd. I made spaghetti (sauce from scratch, pasta from a box), whipped up a quick balsamic vinaigrette, and baked a cake.
The cake recipe was very simple on purpose -- we were already giving Luke tomatoes for the first time, so we didn't want any crazy ingredients in the cake (chocolate, for example). Sadly, this plan backfired horribly, but more on that later. Anyway, the cake is from a cookbook I highly recommend, American Classics, by the America's Test Kitchen people. What's interesting about the recipe is that rather than creaming together the butter and the sugar, as you'd normally do for a cake, they have you mix the dry ingredients and then add the butter a little bit at a time, more like the method you'd follow for making biscuits. Finally, you add the milk and eggs in a steady stream.
In any event, the cake came out very nicely both in terms of flavor and texture. I stacked the two rounds on top of each other, put a layer of homemade raspberry jam in the middle, and then frosted with a buttercream icing from the same book. Finally, the cake was decorated with red lines to look like the stitching and seams on a baseball (you're surprised, I can tell). For pictures, I suggest this link over at Luke's blog.
Unfortunately, Luke had a horrible allergic reaction after digging in to his first birthday cake. Given the timing, we're pretty sure it was the cake and not the spaghetti, though it didn't help matters that he was tired and rubbing spaghetti sauce in his right eye. What's there to be allergic to in cake? It was his first time to have egg whites, which our doctor suggested we not feed him during his first year of life. You can see how badly he swelled up here; it took two doses of Benadryl to get him back to normal. In any event, we're going to hold off on eggs for the time being, and will try out tomato sauce again to rule that out as the cause of his reaction.
Finally, I had my first great food moment with Luke last Friday. We were eating at Max's Memphis Barbeque in Red Hook, about 25 minutes north of here, and along with my ribs I ordered a side of collard greens. And wouldn't you know it, Luke loved the greens. Outside the South, how many one year olds are chowing down on collards? I was so proud of him. Next time we eat there, we'll order him his own side.
The cake recipe was very simple on purpose -- we were already giving Luke tomatoes for the first time, so we didn't want any crazy ingredients in the cake (chocolate, for example). Sadly, this plan backfired horribly, but more on that later. Anyway, the cake is from a cookbook I highly recommend, American Classics, by the America's Test Kitchen people. What's interesting about the recipe is that rather than creaming together the butter and the sugar, as you'd normally do for a cake, they have you mix the dry ingredients and then add the butter a little bit at a time, more like the method you'd follow for making biscuits. Finally, you add the milk and eggs in a steady stream.
In any event, the cake came out very nicely both in terms of flavor and texture. I stacked the two rounds on top of each other, put a layer of homemade raspberry jam in the middle, and then frosted with a buttercream icing from the same book. Finally, the cake was decorated with red lines to look like the stitching and seams on a baseball (you're surprised, I can tell). For pictures, I suggest this link over at Luke's blog.
Unfortunately, Luke had a horrible allergic reaction after digging in to his first birthday cake. Given the timing, we're pretty sure it was the cake and not the spaghetti, though it didn't help matters that he was tired and rubbing spaghetti sauce in his right eye. What's there to be allergic to in cake? It was his first time to have egg whites, which our doctor suggested we not feed him during his first year of life. You can see how badly he swelled up here; it took two doses of Benadryl to get him back to normal. In any event, we're going to hold off on eggs for the time being, and will try out tomato sauce again to rule that out as the cause of his reaction.
Finally, I had my first great food moment with Luke last Friday. We were eating at Max's Memphis Barbeque in Red Hook, about 25 minutes north of here, and along with my ribs I ordered a side of collard greens. And wouldn't you know it, Luke loved the greens. Outside the South, how many one year olds are chowing down on collards? I was so proud of him. Next time we eat there, we'll order him his own side.
posted by JMB at
6:26 PM
2 Comments:
It's true - I saw Ron last week, and he was rubbing spaghetti sauce into his eye.
Frighteningly enough, there was no spaghetti or even any visible source of spaghetti sauce anywhere in sight.
By
Chris Hafner, at 2:12 PM
Spaghetti in sight... get it... muwahahaha.
jason
By
JMB, at 4:45 PM
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